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Pertronix question, and coil, too

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ahpook

ahpook

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Gents (and Ladies, too) -
In my 1500 I put new plug wires, new plugs, a new cap and rotor. Now the car hasn't run right for a while, so I pulled a plug and tried to check out the spark. Almost nothing. My question is how do you know if a coil is going/has gone bad,
and do Pertronix pickups degrade over time? I have no idea if this is the original or what, but I'm a little stumped as to how to go about solving this..I have Voltage to the hot side of the coil, and some sort of pulsing voltage to the other side, but no spark.I'd hate to just throw money at this without understanding what I'm doing...
the weather's getting into the 70's here, and I'm starting to panic not having my Midget...

thanks in advance,
George
 
Only thing I can think of is to make sure the gap between the rotor and Petronix pickup is correct. There should have been a plastic strip you use to set it. Otherwise, I think it's unlikely the Petronix is going bad. They either work or don't work, unless the gap isn't right. You might check the voltage across the coil when the ignition is on but the engine isn't running and make sure it's around 6 volts. If it isn't, you may have wiring problems.
 
If you haven't tossed them, first try the old cap and rotor.
 
I'd add that if you still have a set of points and condenser, fit them to determine if the problem is in the Pertronix or not. BTW, when you have Pertronix fitted you need to make sure you do NOT leave the ignition turned on without running the engine. The limit on this is about three to five minutes after which the Ignitor module overheats and dies.

Take a look at:
https://home.mindspring.com/~purlawson/files/LucasPointsIgnitions.pdf

It may help you with troubleshooting. It's focused on points ignitions but you can still use the basic sequence to test the other components.
 
dklawson said:
BTW, when you have Pertronix fitted you need to make sure you do NOT leave the ignition turned on without running the engine. The limit on this is about three to five minutes after which the Ignitor module overheats and dies.
Click to expand...

hmm, interesting, very interesting.
 
Yup! My sorry, absent-minded self has been there, done that. Went back to points. I'll probably go with a Crane eventually. They are not as easy to melt down.
 
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